


Hounds of Love

by estas_absentis



Series: Hounds of Love [1]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Bring Back Black Challenge, Canon Divergence - Post-Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, Character Death Fix, Christmas, Lie Low At Lupin's (Harry Potter), M/M, Marauders, Marauders' Era, New Year's Eve
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-21
Updated: 2018-12-21
Packaged: 2019-09-24 03:27:52
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 10
Words: 15,537
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17093180
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/estas_absentis/pseuds/estas_absentis
Summary: Christmas/New Year from 1977 - 1996.In which they get together, fall apart, and make their way back.Canon compliant up to Order of the Phoenix.Hit me up ontumblrif that's your thing.





	1. December 25, 1977

**Author's Note:**

> This is a Christmas gift for Tukru, my partner in fanfic discourse, and Claire, who reminded me how much I love this ship in all its sadsack werewolf glory.
> 
> Please let me know if there are any warnings you'd like me to add, I'll be happy to do so. A playlist to accompany this fic is also on the way!

**December 25, 1977**

 

Sirius can't tell if it's the common-room fire or the smuggled whiskey that's painting the high stripe of pinkness across Moony's usually pale cheeks, the smattering of scar tissue by the bridge of his nose startlingly white against the blush. He's laughing at something daft Peter is saying, just out of earshot, several drinks in and unselfconscious in his cups, moving with an unguarded freedom Sirius rarely sees outside of the half-real moondays in the Shack.

Relaxation is a good look on Remus, who still hasn't lost his boyish awkwardness at seventeen, a lifetime of trying not to draw attention writ large in his nervous flesh. At some point in the last few years, Sirius realised he'd switched from entertaining the group at large to trying to make Moony laugh, to draw forth the shoulder-shaking loss of control that feels like a prize in itself.

His head swims happily as he sprawls in his overstuffed armchair, warm with drink and fire and something dangerous low in his belly he's too afraid to name. When Sirius got booted out last year, he'd imagined a Christmas alone, filled with noble suffering, his solitary figure in the common room scrawling florid letters to James detailing the utter misery of spending the festive season with only one's teachers and a few house elves.

It might have been good for him, Sirius muses, to learn stillness and quiet, to acquire some of the self-restraint with which Moony is so richly endowed. Maybe then he could quash the reflexive shame he feels when he knows he's gone too far: taken a joke just past the taste level, had one drink past festive, moved from teasing into cruelty. Impulsivity is in his blood, like his father's madness, and there's not much he can do other than act first, try to get to biggest laugh, and regret whatever damage he's caused later.

The incident last year still looms large over his consciousness, painting every interaction with Remus sickly with guilt. Before, it wasn't that he'd always known exactly what to do or say, but that he hadn't had to think about it at all: he was, and they were. The four of them as tightly knit as the woollen threads of the jumpers Molly Prewett used to make in the common room, harmonious and inextricable. Since his utterly foolish, callous mistake – meant to trouble only Snape, but in the process endangering the thing to which Sirius clings most desperately in the darkening tide – he's found himself watching his own movements. Minding his words, finding himself unpractised in the art of consideration.

He worries sometimes that the easy, warm bond of understanding that flowed between them, which remains unchanged with James and Peter, has been inoperably damaged, whatever Remus had said about forgiving and forgetting after Sirius' sadsack months of wallowing in his own self-recrimination, at once more indulgent and wounding than any reprimand from without.

Tonight though, they are here – his three best friends in all the world, forsaking their mothers' cooking only for him. James, knowing he'd be too proud to impose on the Potters for Christmas simply because he had nowhere else to go, had floated the plan, his voice impressively casual, in what was clearly the conclusion of several group crisis talks to which Sirius had not been party.

This is a gift to which there can be no response, a demonstration of love beyond any material possession. It's something Sirius is slowly realising he needs like air: it's as if the more he receives, the hungrier he is for it, after seventeen years of starched formality and obligation over affection. Remus, who is the most thoughtful amongst them, not least because he's actually friends with girls he isn't actively trying to sleep with, has always seemed to understand this instinctively, and tends to take pains to make Sirius feel normal about his need for casual touches and eye contact, even with the group at their most boisterous.

Since he sent Severus on his abortive reconnaissance to the Shack, however, things between them have been awkward. He almost misses the grovelling phase, when he could be as melodramatic and true as he wanted to be, his expansive sorrow not the least performative in its intensity. Since their brief estrangement – two whole weeks in which Remus would neither speak to Sirius nor look at him directly, during which he wholeheartedly and earnestly wished to fall into the lake and never emerge – things between them have simply been cordial. He feels the loss of intimacy like a bereavement.

The distance from Remus has transfigured their relationship into something unfamiliar, forced a reappraisal that's led Sirius to a few unwelcome discoveries about the exact nature of his feelings and wants, realisations that make him nervous and over-rehearsed when the two are together, hiding his finer feelings, like lycanthropy, just out of sight.

“Penny for them,” James murmurs, just this side of wasted, as he perches in what he probably imagines to be a nonchalant manner on the arm of Sirius' Chesterfield. Because it's James, his eyes slide to Remus, across from them, and back, a little 'v' of concern marring his strong brow momentarily. They've never discussed Sirius' feelings towards Moony, but there's not much James misses – at some point in the last 12 months he's gone and grown up on them, started asking them how they're feeling and listening carefully to the response. His appointment to Head Boy had been a shock to them all, not least Remus, who as Prefect had seemed a shoo in, but who seemed to take the whole thing with about as much grace as anyone could.

He doesn't want to get into this now, on this most sacred and precious of evenings, and deflects by asking how things are going with Evans. James has been after her forever now, with a devotion that borders on the pathetic, which coming from Sirius really means something.

James' face splits into a smile, like the sun coming out, dazzling and slightly embarrassing in its sincerity. “Finally agreed, didn't she?” he tells Sirius, holding aloft a short scrap of paper that Sirius can only assume is capitulation. “Hogsmeade when she's back after hols, one chance only, and so on...”

James is gleeful in his victory, clearly confident that he can use his one chance to good effect. Sirius makes a show of slapping him on the back, sincere in his congratulations, if not a little bitter that the pursuit of love is finally going smoothly for one of their group, when it's recently become so mysterious to him.

“Of course,” James is saying, “I've no doubt a certain furry friend had a hand in this”. He inclines his head slightly towards Remus, whose easy friendship with his fellow prefect Lily has always delighted James as much as it's troubled Sirius, something ugly and jealous stirring in his gut when he sees them reading together in the common room, or walks into a room to catch them talking intently, heads bowed and voices low, silence falling when they see him. It isn't necessarily a romantic jealousy – the whole group has long suspected Remus isn't interested in witches, a subject never explicitly broached but nevertheless without taboo.

It's more that Sirius knows Remus talks to her about things he never does with Sirius – his feelings, muggle literature, all the sensitive parts of himself he feels are more appropriate for Evans. He doesn't blame Remus, who has always been private, for keeping those aspects of himself away from their rowdy clique, but it's still wounding that not only are there depths to Remus Sirius hasn't seen, but that they're depths he isn't trusted to plumb. Sirius wants to drown in him.

“Good old Moony” he replies, fondly, and James smiles back at him, the grin tinged with a sort of exasperated pity that Sirius sees on his face a lot lately. Their eyes often meet watching Remus and Lily together, and James understands things.

He's shaken from his thoughts by Peter's cry of “Oi! It's getting far too soppy for my tastes over there, boys! Why don't you stop talking about your periods and let's have another round, eh?”. James shakes his head, tells Peter that he really is an unreconstructed pig, but his smile is big and easy as he does so.

The four boys crowd together around the low oak coffee table that's serving as their bar for the evening, as Peter carelessly spells four little shot glasses full with the (now dangerously depleted) whiskey stash. “What shall we toast to?” he asks his friends, when he's done, wiping the tip of his wand free of Ogden's. The four of them sit cross-legged, shadows in their faces jumping with the firelight. Remus has his free hand on the ground, listing slightly to one side. His fingers are so close to Sirius' splayed hand that it's an agony of self control not to bridge the minute gap.

“To Potter finally wearing Evans down!” he suggests, to distract himself. James pinks in a pleased sort of way and Remus huffs, not unkindly.

“To Hogwarts, and our last Christmas here. May we never forget the unique pleasure of Argus Filch's table manners, nor the surprisingly bawdy after dinner humour of McGonagall after a sherry.”

“To all the parties we'll have at Sirius' new place, may he be blessed with tolerant neighbours”

“To home, I guess. Wherever that ends up being” Remus adds, then cringes at himself “and that's definitely enough booze for me boys, I'm getting sentimental. Somebody do something stupid, quick, before we all start singing the school song and reminiscing, damp-eyed, about our top ten acts of vandalism”.

James instantly obliges, transfiguring Peter's pyjamas after a moment of concentration into the frilliest nightgown Sirius has ever seen. He springs up, pink bows bobbing with the movement, and launches himself at James, who may be an athlete but is also considerably lighter than Peter. Beside Sirius, Remus is laughing fondly at them.

The moment their fingers touch feels like accidental magic, both supernatural and inevitable. Sirius forces himself not to look away when Remus turns his head, looks down at their hands and then into Sirius' face. “What are you doing?” he asks, quietly.

“Something stupid.” Sirius says, and kisses him.


	2. December 31st, 1978

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> New Year's Eve, 1978. 
> 
> An engagement, Kate Bush, and a proposal.

**December 31 st, 1978**

 

Sirius is glad his neighbours did turn out to be tolerant, although he's usually pretty good about disillusioning the balcony and using muffling charms when they've got the music blaring. In his little living room, James is twirling Lily to _Children of the Revolution_ , a last minute addition to the mixtape Remus compiled for the occasion.

 

“Bit on the nose, innit, Moony?” he asks, waving his hand in the air as if gesturing to the song which surrounds them.

 

“On _your_ nose” he replies, nonsensically, leaning in to kiss it, once, and grin. Love blooms in Sirius' stomach like one of those fancy tea flowers, the ones you get in hippie cafes that play Dylan and sell you shitty home-gown weed under the counter. He can't believe how little he's gotten used to this, to being able to touch Remus, to Remus touching him.

 

In the small sitting room, Marc Bolan's voice fades out, replaced by a tinkly piano and a high, witchy voice. Kate Bush gives Sirius the creeps – she has a touch of his cousin Bellatrix about her – but Remus and Lily love her, and this track was on hard rotation when it came out earlier this year.

 

“Remus!” Lily calls, her hands beckoning him over to the kitchen-cum-dancefloor, and he pushes himself off the couch and switches places with James, doing something vaguely mystical with his hands and making Lily splutter with laughter. “Do you know the dance, yeah? From the video?” she asks him, and Sirius sees the second Remus considers pretending not to, before he grins and starts wiggling about with Lily, uninhibited in a way he only is on nights like this, safe in the cocoon of their little family. Sirius loves him in a way that borders on pain.

 

He takes the beer James hands him and they smile at one another, watching Lily and Remus. “Can you believe _they're_ the sensible ones?” he asks fondly, and James laughs into the green glass neck, his teeth clinking on the bottle a little.

 

“They can't be that sensible, mate, they're with us”

 

“Fair. God, we're so fucking lucky”

 

Sirius grins in agreement, looking over at Lily and Remus, who are holding each other by the elbows and laughing hard at something only they know. When he's sure they're distracted, James says, quietly “I'm going to ask her tonight, mate”.

 

Two months ago, in the early-morning dregs of Sirius' birthday party, James had quietly beckoned him out to the balcony of his flat, Remus and Lily inside, wincing at some cocktail Peter had attempted to invent from the contents of Sirius' cupboards. Slipping a small box from his pocket, he'd handed it to Sirius, opening it to reveal a diamond ring, round and solid in its silk surrounding.

 

“Prongs, I don't know what to say. I'm flattered, but...”

 

“Don't be a dick, Pads – what do you think? I got this when I went to see my mum and dad last weekend”

 

“You sneaky bastard, I thought it was weird you didn't take Lily with you. She thought you might have been doing something for Dumbledore, you know”

 

“I know. Good thing he's such a secretive old prick, isn't it? The perfect cover for subterfuge”

“When are you going to do it?”

 

“I dunno. Soon – Christmas maybe, or New Year. Just seems silly to wait, with everything that's going on, you know?”

 

Sirius had smiled queasily, his happiness for James curdling in his stomach with something heavy and dark, an unease he couldn't place.

 

“Prongs! I think I've cracked it!” Peter had called from the kitchen, and with a wink James had slipped the ring-box into Sirius' pocket.

 

“Keep that safe for me, will you? Best out of her way until the time's right”

 

Since then, the ring has been hidden in his bedside drawer, charmed shut lest Moony stumble into it when staying over and get the wrong idea. He's avoided thinking about it, on the whole, less because he disapproves of the union – he doesn't – than because the idea of Prongs getting married, irreparably changing the fabric of Sirius' only and chosen family, makes him selfishly frightened, as does the rising tide of unrest that's prompted James' haste.

 

They've all been working for the Order since school, and while it's mostly just been research, desk-work – long nights poring over maps and runes, Moony reading something obscure and ancient on the other end of the couch, feet in Sirius' lap – there's something in the air lately that leaves him wary and on edge.

 

Shaking his head, as he would as Padfoot, Sirius clears his mind. Any nagging doubts are easy to ignore, feel far away in this warm bright room filled with the people he loves most. He claps James on the back in a pally sort of way and fetches the box, slipping it back to his friend in a move so smooth he's gutted no third party is watching to witness his finesse.

 

At around eleven thirty, James makes a big show of wanting to 'get some fresh air' on the balcony. Lily makes some kind of sarcastic comment about how he better not be trying to get away with smoking one of Sirius' cigarettes, because unlike Remus, who rolls his own and smokes like a chimney, she has Opinions about it. “Come and keep an eye on me, then” he says, and she follows him, rolling her eyes without anger. Sirius makes a _shush_ ing gesture at Remus and Peter, holding a hand to his ear to catch what's going on outside.

 

Lily giggles, and there's a lot of low murmuring, which Sirius imagines is James' attempt at some sort of noble speech. Peter looks puzzled, but Remus turns to Sirius with a disbelieving half smile on his face.

 

“He isn't?” he whispers and Sirius nods, feeling himself caught up in Remus' surprised happiness at this new development. Their hands find each other, fingers interlaced as they listen. The moment James actually does it, they needn't strain to hear: Lily's shocked gasp and then peals of happy laughter spill into the flat from outside, and shortly after this Lily and James reappear, pink-cheeked and wet lipped. Lily is crying, and they both wear face-splitting grins. James lifts Lily's hand to show the group her ring finger, and everyone whoops – Peter pouring drinks, Sirius clapping James on the back and Remus holding Lily's hand, eyes flicking between the ring and her glowing face as he congratulates her.

 

The night passes in a happy blur, 1979 being born around them. It's almost enough, with all this love, to believe they'll make it after all.

 

-

 

After they've each drifted off home – first Peter, then James and Lily, still beaming, Sirius looks around the chaos that is his small flat. The furniture has been pushed back to make room for dancing, there are cork stains on the ceiling from an overzealous bottle-popping, and there's definitely a new fag burn on his couch. “I'll sort this out in the morning” he tells Remus, who by this point basically stays by default unless it's a work night or there's Order business to take care of, “I'm taking you to bed”.

 

In his room, he spells the candles on, bathing them in warm light. It reminds him with a heart-tug of the common room, sitting together by the fire, their first kiss last year, when Remus had stared back, unmoving and stunned, until James had cheered and the moment had broken from discomfort into the easy inevitability of love. Of course they had kissed. Of course, now, they always would.

 

He loves Remus' body, the narrow shoulders and compact, lean frame, the wiry strength of the wolf under his skin. He runs his tongue along the curved scar on Remus' sternum, just as he had the first time they'd fucked, reconsecrating cursed ground. He wants to kiss every painful part of Remus until it's pink and clean, make the world safe and new for him. Sirius is bowled over anew with the gutpunch of love, the way it rushes through his body like a wet wave, the fierce urge to _have_ and keep, the knowledge that a hundred years wouldn't even be enough time.

 

“I love you” he says, when Remus is on his back, Sirius kneeling between his spread thighs in the candlelight. He's said it a thousand times, more – wants so fiercely for Remus to understand the bruising intensity of it. Sirius has two fingers in him, kissing along his jaw to the tender spot below his ear that Sirius knows is sensitive. “I love you” he whispers into it, barely more than held breath. Everything feels so much, is brimming with warm and supernatural import in the way that time with Remus often feels, everything painted sacred with a holiness he can't ever really explain.

 

“I love you” Remus whispers back, like a secret, like the words are fragile and he needs to speak softly or break them.

 

When it's over, they face each other, scourgified and stretched out in the dark. Every place their bodies do not touch is agony. Sirius understands, in a second, why James didn't want to wait. The world around them is getting darker and darker, and Remus is a hot bright spot of happiness and truth. He wants to hold on so tightly his knuckles break, and the fear and desperation tugging at his gut feel like an inextricable part of the love itself, urgent and human and alive.

 

“Live here” he breathes into Remus' shoulder “with me”.

 


	3. December 31st 1979 / Jan 1st 1980

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> December 31st 1979 / Jan 1st 1980.
> 
> A full moon.

**December 31 st 1979**

 

“All I'm saying,” says Sirius “is that it's really not my fault that you went and got up the duff, Evans, and now I have to drink your share of the booze. If you want to blame anyone, blame Prongs, the dog”

 

“I think you'll find you're still the dog, darling” says Remus, the couch next to Sirius dipping under his weight. Sirius learns over, his dark hair tickling Remus' cheek, and whispers “Woof woof”, licks one hot stripe up his cheek.

 

“And alcohol or not, I just want to be clear that I won't tolerate this behaviour in my flat” says Lily “I'd expect it of you, Black, but _Remus_...” she throws up her hands in mock disgust.

 

“Whatever Evans, I know what you married” rejoins Sirius “so I hardly think you can be faulting Moony's taste in men. Where is our fearless leader tonight, anyway?”

 

The way he asks is carefully casual – they've all been much busier with the Order lately, James more than anyone. He imagines she must sit at home, chewing down her nails in fear, every time he's out, must stare at the clock unable to distract herself. He knows it's like that for him – every moment Moony is gone is a dripping tap of worry that he'll come home hurt, or not at all. Sometimes Sirius can't believe kids like them are fighting a war, that two years ago they were at school. He feels about a decade older than he did last Christmas.

 

“Meeting with Dumbledore. Shouldn't be out too late, he says. He'll be sorry if he misses you two, Christmas was so quiet with his parents and no holiday parties, I think he's quite gutted about New Year” she says, absently cupping her stomach. She's nowhere near showing yet: it's too early, really, for them to even know about the baby – women usually keep it to themselves until they're out of the woods a little further, but really, what would _out of the woods_ even mean now? There's nothing that's safe, and Lily seems too tired to have another secret to keep.

 

“Well, if it's any consolation, my love, I don't think we'll be having much fun either” says Remus wryly, starting to roll himself a cigarette as he does, slim fingers tucking and curling on the thin paper. She's stopped telling either of them off for smoking – seems silly when there's more immediate risk around every corner, he supposes.

 

It's shit luck that the full moon falls over the last New Year before the baby comes, though – if Sirius had been nervous about the wedding changing things, it's nothing compared to the orange panic that irradiates his blood when he imagines James and Lily as parents. When she'd told Remus, on one of their lunches, he'd smiled and congratulated her, then come home to Sirius with bloody knuckles.

 

“A baby! What the fuck are she and Prongs thinking, when we're in the Order? People are dying, things are – fuck! Of all the irresponsible, stupid shit he's done in his life...” he'd trailed off, his eyes wild and wet, looking beseechingly at Sirius for something – like he wanted to be corrected, told it wasn't so bad. Sirius couldn't say it then and still can't lie to Remus, learned months ago that he can't make the world sweet for him by love alone.

 

Whether they approve or not, the baby is coming, and Lily looks so miserable lately that Sirius wants to cry. When James gets home, the door creaking, both he and Remus twitch their wand arms instinctively. James looks like hell – dark circles under his eyes, and thinner than Sirius had ever seen him. His smile is still all James,though, and he grabs a beer from the cardboard pack Remus splashed out on from his Muggle dole cheque. Over the next hour, despite his laughter, Sirius can feel Remus getting more and more nervous, twisting his hands and tapping his feet reflexively.

 

He gets like this, when they're out before moonrise – anxious about being away in time, knowing he's in control. Sirius stops the sewing machine motion of his bouncing knee with one pale hand, makes a joke about getting home for Remus' time of the month. It would have been funny a few years ago, but when he smiles at it now, Remus looks more like he's just showing them his teeth.

 

 

**January 1st, 1980**

 

Coming home from the forest outside town, where they go on moondays, Remus' head lolls against the window in half-sleep. It's still dark enough in the early morning that his whole face reflects in the window, blood smeared and white, meeting its mirror image along a seam as if he's reaching to kiss a twin. Sirius thinks about Regulus, the boy with Sirius' almost-blood and almost-face, and wonders what he's doing now. _Stupid motherfucker,_ he thinks, but he can't get any fire behind it.

 

All he ever wants to do on these days following the moon is curl up with Remus, pretend they're somewhen safer. This need he's always had to make the world soft enough to deserve Moony flares up, a great protective welling, with Remus so wan and sore. He runs a warm bath while he smokes a fag, a straight from Sirius' pack, his hands too fumbly and moondrunk to roll.

 

“Arms up” he says, and what he means is I love you.

 

He slides off Remus' shirt, up and over his beautiful, battered face, and what he means is I love you.

 

Sirius unfastens Remus' belt, pops the button of his jeans, helps him step out of them, one leg, then two, his tired head resting on Sirius' shoulder as he does so, and all the while he is thinking in his head a warm litany of Iloveyous like a Rosary, like saying thirty will atone for anything, like this caregiving will do anything but pull Remus in one piece to the next beating in his path.

 

When Remus is in the tub, he smiles, just once, at Sirius. Something unspeakably tender passes between them, a slim and watery cord of vulnerability that makes Sirius want to cry. He does that a lot, lately. In the steaming water, Moony's cheeks are pink, and he looks so fucking young. Sirius cleans him, every swipe of the sponge a silent prayer, and nothing outside of this room is real. The world is made of him loving Remus, in theory and in practice, in sickness and in health, for fucking ever, amen.

 

When it's done, they lie in the early morning blackout-blind darkness of their room, the birds singing. Sirius holds Remus to his chest, murmurs nonsense into his mousy hair, smooths his hands down over his shoulders. He never knew he was capable of such tenderness before this, and it is like another gift Moony has given him – allowing himself to be loved like this, Sirius knows, is a kind of generosity.

 

They wake up at four in the afternoon and it's already dark. Remus rolls over, wincing, clinging to sleep, but Sirius gets up to piss, scrawls a note to James and Lily to let them know they got through fine, as always. He fetches water and Remus drinks it, sitting up in bed with the duvet pooling around his waist.

 

“Sirius” he says, his hoarse voice almost a whisper and Sirius glances up at him. He looks bewildered, as if he's never seen Sirius before, the way he sometimes gets after the moon “you're so...” his eyes are cast downwards, full of something too big to name.

 

“I love you” he says, almost soundless, and the sun rises in Sirius' chest.

 


	4. December 24th, 1980

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> December 24th, 1980.
> 
> A baby, suspicion, and a reunion of sorts.

**December 24 th, 1980**

 

He hasn't seen Sirius in a week when he arrives at the Potters' for Christmas drinks. For seven days straight he's been replaying the strange, tense row they'd had, all clipped sentences and unheld hands, before he left. It's getting more frequent, this – both the drawn out, Order mandated absences, and the strain that surrounds them, everyone stretched as thin as spider-silk and snapping under the weight.

 

As Remus makes his way up the gravelled path to the cottage, he sees the bright cherry of Sirius' cigarette-end first. As he gets closer, the fine features of his face emerge gradually, the evening dark around them like a cloak. They stand in silence, look at one another in the slant of light leaking from Lily's kitchen window.

 

Sirius looks exhausted, like he hasn't slept in the week Remus has been away, and he's junkie-thin. His red-rimmed eyes burn with the manic spark they've taken on this past year, perched just on the precipice of madness in a way that makes him hard to look at, even (or perhaps especially) for Remus. His free hand is fisted in the pocket of his leather jacket and Remus wonders if he's started on the whiskey yet.

 

It's not a secret that Sirius has been slowly unravelling for months, eliciting concern from nearly everyone they know. His drinking, the recklessness of his actions, the half-truths and outright lies – it terrifies Remus, makes him feel sometimes like he's already lost someone who remains right in front of him.

 

The argument – as they tend to be – had been about Remus being sent away to camp around the freezing South Wales coast for the week before Christmas, something Dumbledore had 'suggested' he do, to check in with the rural wizarding communities there and suss out any pockets of trouble growing in the areas further from the oversight of wizarding London.

 

“I'm just saying, it's a bit much, isn't it? I don't know why he couldn't have waited a couple of months for this, it's bloody ridiculous. You're going to freeze, for one thing, and I...” Sirius had trailed off in frustration, rubbing his brow between index finger thumb on the edge of their bed.

 

Behind him, Remus was packing a light selection of essentials into a backpack, extended by charmwork to accommodate the one-man tent they'd both had to squeeze into for a trip to North Yorkshire last year, preferring to bundle together as tightly as possible rather than expand the canvas space. They'd thought things had been bad then, but at least they'd been together – the solidarity of fighting the same war, and the confessional closeness of their bodies in the dark.

 

Nobody's been sent in pairs for a few months now, since Dumbledore had informed them all in a low, regretful tone that someone within the Order was suspected of leaking information, and that there was no way to be sure just who it was. Easier to have independent agents all reporting only to him, than the little subsets and factions that emerged when teamwork was involved, and safer too – but the sickly threat of betrayal has haunted them all like a tiny ghost ever since.

 

Flicking his eyes forward, Remus had looked at the shaggy back of Sirius' head, at himself standing behind it in the mirror before the bed. He'd looked like shit – they both had – too much smoking, drinking and stress, nowhere near enough sleep. The bones of Sirius' face were too prominent, a sneak-preview of his skull, and his eyes seemed desperate, like he was looking at a muggle Magic Eye painting, trying to pull sense out of chaos and failing miserably.

 

All this concern on his behalf annoyed Remus, who knew he was on thin enough ice anyway, what with the wolf and the ever-present, anyone's game threat of a traitor in their midst. It seemed a kind of arrogance that Sirius thought he had a choice, that he felt confident enough to criticise Dumbledore so openly without worrying about arousing suspicion.

 

“Yes, well. The war's not likely to wait around for us to play happy families for Christmas, is it?” he'd answered tersely, watching Sirius' mouth screw up a little in annoyance at the response.

 

“As if buying a few old witches half a lager down the pubs in the Valleys and skulking around the Labour clubs hoping to hear something worthwhile couldn't wait until Spring. It's hardly _espionage_ ”

 

“What the fuck is that supposed to mean?” Remus knows his assignments tend to be the far flung, shitty jobs that keep him away from anything really important, just like he knows Dumbledore wouldn't dream of asking James to do something as low-key as this. It stings, of course, but Remus has always known that people don't find him easy to trust, that being on the edge of things is quite literally in his blood. It hurt coming from Sirius though, all pure-blood and right-hand-man, felt like being put in his place.

 

“You know exactly what I mean, don't get precious about it. Dumbledore's a demanding prick when he wants to be, you don't need to just lie down for him whenever he asks”

 

“I'd be careful who you let hear you talking like that. People might think something's up”. It had been an offhand comment, the reflexive lash of Remus' wounded pride, but Sirius'd looked like he'd been kicked in the stomach.

 

“Like you do, you mean” he'd said in a low voice, his half-starved eyes meeting Remus' in the mirror.

 

And Remus _doesn't_ suspect Sirius, not really – only in the occasional, wondering moments when he feels the 2am mattress-dip, smells the notes of blood under Sirius' incongruously floral handwash, finds him half a bottle in to the firewhisky at 3pm on a Tuesday, staring at the blank television set. No more than split-second _what-ifs_ , no more than anyone would, he thinks, bar Sirius, for whom any doubt, however fleeting, is a crushing betrayal. But Remus isn't Sirius, doesn't have his unwavering dog's heart, and has very rarely trusted anyone and come out with anything to show for himself.

 

He'd rolled his eyes, in his primmest and coldest voice told Sirius to grow up, and that had been the last of it. Sirius had pissed off to the sitting room, no doubt to chain smoke and drink Bell's from the bottle, every inch the wounded Byronic hero. Later, in the thick, dark belly of the night, Remus had slipped out of bed and dressed in silence, leaving the light off to avoid waking Sirius, who'd lurched in to bed a few hours before, Remus feigning sleep to avoid him.

 

He'd almost made it clear out of the door when Sirius' sleep-drunk (and drunk-drunk) voice had broken the stillness of the night, “Moony” a stage whisper into cold air. He'd made a non-committal noise of acknowledgement, his portkey only minutes away, and Sirius, his eyes still closed, had slurred “I love you” out into the room, open and true as a childhood sweetheart.

 

“Yep.” Remus had said, and walked out.

 

 

Looking now into his half-crazed face, Remus feels a twist of regret. It was a cruel thing to do to Sirius, for whom love and loyalty are sacrosanct, even if he was being an oblivious prick.

 

“Good trip?” Sirius asks, in what he obviously believes is a neutral tone. He's trying not to look too much like he could cry at any moment, but Remus is intimately acquainted with the sweet machinations of that face, recognises each shift and twist of its features like he recognises the changing moon. There's a song on inside the house and Remus can hear little bits of it, something about running into the trees, calling out a name.

 

He wants to make a joke, ease the tension, something about the old biddies in the Rhondda and freezing his bollocks off the night he'd camped near the Worm's Head, but something holds him back. It feels so unfair that he's the one who's been away, roughing it in shit weather, aching and aching for a home that doesn't really exist any more, and Sirius is the one with the nerve to go to fucking pieces.

 

He wants to tell him everything, how the thrumming of the rain on the canvas roof kept him awake all night, too scared to use a silencing charm lest it leave him vulnerable to attack. How the cold had set into his bones, into the aching place at his core, and no tea or jumper or fireside has been able to get it warm since. How afraid he felt, alone in the night, the little tent smelling of Sirius. How he'd found a copy of Wuthering Heights still in there, from their trip to Haworth, and pored over the familiar text in the night, inconsolable, sick with grief over just how many chances people in love can miss, how hard wrong beginnings are to climb free from.

 

Sirius is twitchy, and Remus is tired. “It was fine” he says, and goes inside.

 

-

 

Christmas Eve at James and Lily's isn't the wild occasion it used to be, but it's nice to kick off his shoes at the door and take the offered glass of wine, sit sides-brushing on the little sofa by Sirius. With the warm blur of the Christmas lights softening their war-sharp faces, it's easy to pretend for a moment that they're in happier times, like their growing darkness is a heavy coat they can shrug off.

 

James looks good, which makes one of their party. He embraces them both, his smile spreading slow across his face like a sunrise, and tells them that Lily is upstairs changing Harry. Fatherhood agrees with James, seems to have given him purpose rather than panic, filled him with a new sense of optimism – he is, Remus supposes, the only one of them with a piece of the world to come, a physical totem of hope for the future. Skin in the game.

 

He keeps looking at Sirius and frowning, obviously concerned by his appearance. Remus feels a hot stab of guilt, like the owner of an ungroomed pet, mixed with an uncomfortable note of annoyance at Sirius for having the nerve to be so bloody blatant about all of this – for cracking up so visibly, when Remus is at least having the decency to paper good manners and bland smiles over the screaming behind his eyes.

 

Harry's arrival, cradled in Lily's arms, is like a power surge, everything in the room suddenly feeling brighter,softer. Remus remembers Lily telling him, a little tearfully, about the baby, looking him in the eye before he had a chance to say anything and defiantly telling him she'd be keeping it. He'd punched a brick wall so hard his knuckles bruised, after that, slinked home to Sirius to have his hand bandaged and rant about the dumbfuck idiocy of doing that at a time like _this_.

 

It's mad though, how much they've all come to need Harry. Bad timing it may be, to welcome an infant when the world is falling apart around their ears, but he's the single most effective galvanising force in history. Harry is completely innocent, someone nobody has bad-blood or strange history with, a perfect, blameless being. Remus thinks he's probably the only person in the whole world that it's safe to love.

 

Sirius adores him, will be a wonderful godfather if he ever recovers his sanity. He's animated now, more alive than he's looked to Remus in weeks, shifting position to allow Lily to transfer the gurgling baby to his arms. He coos nonsense into Harry's whispy hair, kisses the vulnerable softness at the top of his head. When Harry grabs at his overgrown hair, Sirius laughs, a real one, not the empty, clipped bark to which Remus has become accustomed. He wants to run home and watch it on a loop in a Pensieve, Sirius' eyes lighting up over and over and over, the corners of his eyes sweetly crinkling, the noise a surprise even to himself.

 

Remus catches his eye over Harry's head, accidental and devastating. Sirius' cheeks are flushed and his gaze is soft with a tenderness Remus hasn't seem aimed at himself for months, especially not outside of the shattered days that follow the full moon. The easy openness with which Sirius can love stuns him all over again, makes him want to cover his eyes and also look forever into them. Love, like nausea, is rising in his throat, flooding his chest, and he has to avert his gaze, embarrassed by the sincerity of it. When he dares look back, the moment is over, Sirius absorbed in Harry alone, teaching him a drinking song from school, Lily modifying the bawdier lyrics as they go.

 

It's the stuff of cliché to go gooey when you see the man you love with an infant, real _Witch Weekly_ territory, but after this year Remus is almost delighted that he can still feel something so embarrassingly normal. It makes him want to weep for their wasted potential, for the softer lives they could be trying on were it not for the war.

 

When they get home, the air's thick with love, and Remus drags Sirius through it to their room, kissing him hard on the mouth. Sirius responds like a starving man at his first meal for months, his answering lips bruising against Remus. Quite possibly this whole thing will consume them.

 

The only light is a thin slice of the moon, highlighting the hollows of clavicles and hipbones, picking out in stark detail the new scars and old wounds: Sirius with his body like Braille, Remus touching to understand. He's got one hand around Sirius' cock, the other crooked around the nape of his neck, cradling the weight of it when it falls back, Sirius gasping directly into Remus' mouth like a benediction. This is all there is: the two of them, together, speaking without words. Sirius' hips canting sweetly towards him in the moon-licked darkness, and he thinks, giddy and desperate, _no, it's not you, of course I don't think it is._

 

 


	5. December 25th, 1981

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> December 25th, 1981.
> 
> A darkness.

**December 31 st, 1981**

 

It's probably Christmas day, and Sirius has been in jail for two months. He's not certain, stopped counting the days after ten passed and he got sick of waiting for someone to turn up with a pardon, with that rat bastard Pettigrew in a cage, with a killing curse meant just for him. Any of these would be preferable to this interminable empty time, the idiot hope that surges in his bastard chest whenever he hears movement outside the cell.

 

He can't believe how badly wrong his only life has gone, how quickly everything could be wrenched from his hands until there was nothing. _No Harry no Lily no James no Remus_ , this is the mantra he plays on a loop in his head, dizzy with grief, crying for his friends and his lover and finally for himself, stupid reckless lost boy paying for his madness, for the hot head that dragged him after Peter in the first place.

 

He'd hoped they'd give Harry to Remus, that he could imagine his two last loves safe and happy together, hating him, perhaps, but whole. He tries to entertain himself with broody little thoughts of Moony with the baby, of first steps and new rituals. When he reads that they've sent Harry away to Lily's hated sister, the pain is a sharp kick to the ribs, the final hopeful thread breaking in the interconnected web of their lives.

 

His mind is a slow crumbling. The paper is full of joy, a sick joke that he can't remember how to laugh at. He stops reading around the same time he stops counting the days, when it becomes clear nobody is campaigning for his release. There's not a whisper in there from Dumbledore or Remus, and in his blacker moments Sirius curses his lover's name, furious at his apparently faithless acceptance of the official order of events. _If it was you, Moony_ , he thinks, his head a maelstrom of hot betrayal and cold grief and lovelovelove, _I'd be screaming in the streets_.

 

He spends as many nights as he can as Padfoot, hiding in the simple sadness of his animal's brain, the moment of crushing realisation after turning back so uniquely painful that Sirius wonders if he's actually helping himself at all. The dementors take every memory he tries to cling to – his joy at Harry's chubby cheeks, James' boyish laugh, Remus' hips bumping his own in the dark – and strip it of feeling until it may as well be a film clip or a photograph, an image without context, a story told by someone else.

 

Without hope, without joy, all he has left is hate, staggering in its scale, Blackening his blood, festering as it circulates through his wrecked frame. He also has the love, which is worse.

 

 


	6. December 25th, 1993

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> December 25th, 1993.
> 
> A time-jump, cigarettes, and something in the air.

**December 24, 1993**

 

Remus has had a scream nested in his throat for years now. He supposes it's acting as a sort of plug, keeping all the grief he Isn't Thinking About stoppered and inside him, where it can fester along with all the other feelings he has no use for, all the fucking pointless love rotting in his belly, all the anger he's folded neatly at the back of his mind.

 

He's amazed by how normal grief can become. Early on, he'd imagined it might one day pass, pale into something manageable and distant, but it isn't that way at all. Instead, all the disappointment, the shame – every ounce of blistering, awful, sickwrong love still in him – has transmuted into a kind of perpetual tiredness, a weight and a weariness not dissimilar to the hollowing moon-ache that precedes the wolf.

 

The first day he'd seen Harry at school, he'd almost let it out: felt the stopper in his throat cracking, that face and those eyes like a body-blow, like thirteen years gone in a second, like home. Remus has been smoking again since he came back to Hogwarts, started the night he came back. He doesn't really understand why he quit in the first place, when some days he still thinks, faced with the enormity of all this feeling, _I hope it fucking kills me_. There are ghosts in every corner here, each corridor mapped into his mind with memories – a disastrous prank in this classroom, a fight over there, all the ghost-footprints of his love hammering back through the years like a heartbeat.

 

Remus wants to reach out to Harry, to wrap him in his arms, tell him stories about dancing with Lily, raising hell with James, wants to walk him through the common rooms and parties of memory, but he knows he can't. There's no story without Sirius, nothing unstained, and he knows he'd be doing it at least partly to make himself less alone, the only living thing left in those remembered rooms. As if welcoming Harry in could clear out the dust, like opening up a house after time away to find everything deadened by the lack of breath within its walls.

 

The most he can do for Harry now is to train him, show him how to insulate himself from the dementors, an apology for thirteen years of failing to keep the boy safe. Having the things in the school at all is like a punishment designed just for Remus: for the first few years his nightmares were full of them, full of Sirius, the walls and the sky and his clothes so grey that everything took on the monochrome cast of a dog's dream. On the days he hated Sirius they'd been almost a comfort, on others a wrenching ordeal: here is the thing you loved made monstrous. Maybe it always was.

 

Remus oscillates between finding it easier to imagine Sirius had never truly loved him and believing that their relationship was somehow the one true thing about him. He's done this internal dance for years, alternating between denial and the obsessive remembering of the left behind. When he'd heard Sirius had escaped he'd laughed and laughed, a sound dead and ugly even to his own ears, astonished that Sirius was _still_ the only person really capable of surprising him, even from twelve years and miles of freezing ocean away.

 

The next morning he'd come downstairs to realise he'd left the doors unlocked, probably an accident of the whiskey he'd dosed himself with to quell the mad thumping of his blood, quite possibly also a subconscious invitation to the bastard to come and finish the job he'd started in 1981.

 

After that, Hogwarts had seemed the only option, the proximity to Harry both a lure and a drawback, the vague idea of protecting him somewhere close to the front of his mind. This made it seem nobler than it was though: it was more that, for all of his hard-earned cynicism, returning to Hogwarts when James' son was a student _and_ Sirius was at large seemed to be the way fate's fucked hand was steering him. The offers from Dumbledore had been periodically remade every few years: always before the idea of wading through all of that dead pain had seemed too much to even attempt, like walking directly into the black maw of the scream. It was as if Remus had previously filed both himself and Sirius under 'dead things' in his mind, alongside every other beloved person or animal or hope he'd ever entertained, and the sudden newsprint flash of his continued existence had been a resurrection, an unpausing of feeling, a summons back to the waking world.

 

Despite seeing that mugshot face in every half-remembered nightmare for over a decade, he'd been unprepared for the confrontation with his wanted poster, first in the paper and subsequently around the school this year. He can _hear_ the scream in Sirius' mouth, feels hollowed out by the unreadable desperation in his eyes, that bitter fucking laugh, and he still feels the queasy combination of rage and pity he had on his first viewing. He still wants, against all logic, to smooth that crazy hair, to whisper soothing rubbish until the wild flare in Sirius' eyes dulls, all the tiny mercies of love that had sustained them towards the end.

 

He still can't believe he didn't see it coming, always saw Sirius’ erratic behaviour as a sign more of depression than deception, his optimism and hope wounded unfixably by the increasing hopelessness of wartime. Probably he had been half-mad his whole life, the hairpin bends of his moods and the sheer scale of his love symptoms of a larger wound made somewhere deep within his Black childhood, impossible to outrun.

 

Since the last break-in Remus has been wired and alert, finds himself wandering the walls and grounds late-on, his cigarette a small torch of yearning, a pathetic beacon lighting the tiny radius of night around his scarred hand. He doesn't know what he'd do if Sirius reappeared, has given endless hours of thought to this over the years and come up with a different answer nearly every time. Remus hopes he's a good enough man not to allow his need for answers to outweigh his better judgement, hopes he would hand Sirius over immediately if apprehended. Denying himself is so second nature now that Remus almost believes he could manage it; years of heartbreak and poverty have allowed him to feel unselfish and austere, when in reality he has simply not wanted a single thing he could actually have for thirteen years.

 

The moon is aching through his bones, his gut roiling uneasily with the potion Severus dropped by earlier. This month he is almost grateful for the transformation, the knowledge that he doesn't need to suffer through Christmas dinner surrounded by the ghosts of his friends, the conversation around him inevitably turning to Sirius, the revered and reviled memory of the first time Sirius' lips met his on this very day sixteen years ago, knocking his lonely life irretrievably off-course.

 

The first moon without Sirius, Remus had hoped he'd die. The wolf had howled and howled for its mate, lonely without words for its loneliness. He'd gone back to his parents' empty house to turn that night, locked himself in the cellar, swallowed up by the air still thick with childhood misery. Waking up alone and in pain, he'd had the strange sense that no time at all had passed since those childhood days, that he'd spent his whole life by himself in this joyless room, ripping himself to shreds.

 

He could almost believe everything aside from this had been a dream, a giddy fantasy in which he knew and was known, in which his scars were inventoried and remade by the weight of someone else's love. Eventually he'd concluded that he hadn't the imagination to invent Sirius, and that even he didn't hate himself enough to conjure such a painful ending for any of them.

 

The betrayal had begun to seem inevitable to him in retrospect, in those self hating days when he'd done the only thing he knew how to, turned the anger and fear back on himself like a backfiring curse. He'd always been embarrassed by the force of Sirius' love, felt like a fraud in the face of its intensity, asked himself how he could possibly deserve that level of devotion. Finally, an answer had presented itself, which was simply that Sirius was a good actor with a bad script, his material overwrought and sentimental, and that Remus, desperate to plug the gaps at his core, had overlooked the obvious as a reprieve from the endless emptiness. That Remus had loved Sirius – completely, madly, angrily and often grudgingly – made it all the more pathetic, to say nothing of the fact that after twelve years he still carried the love about, unnecessary and formless, its weight a penance for Remus' stupidity.

 

For the first time in years, Sirius himself has ceased to be an abstract thing: somewhere in the dark, he is out there, alive. There's a disturbance in the December air beyond the cold fullness of the moon, a sense of something waiting to unfurl. Something in Remus, the part of him that always knew Sirius was home before he heard the boot on the stair, is pricking up its ears, holding its gaze steady at the threshold. He hopes he'll be ready when it comes.

 


	7. December 26th, 1994

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> December 26th, 1994.
> 
> A visit, a note and a cold cup of tea.

**December 26th 1994**

 

Remus stares at the scrap of parchment for a long ten minutes before he very calmly lets it catch the end of his cigarette, watches the flame blacken and devour the paper, the heat growing as it nears the callused tips of his fingers. Even with nobody watching, it's a matter of pride to keep hold of it as it burns, feeling discomfort blur into pain as the words written there unsay themselves into nothing.

 

The silence of something not being said is different than the silence of _nothing_ being said, and both are different than the silence of something having been there and now being gone. Possibly he smoked too much pot as a young man if he can make these distinctions at all, but then, he's become a connoisseur of silences in his short and scarred lifetime, can tell the differences in tone and weight like a twitcher studying bird calls, the blunt and ugly music of the world open only for him.

 

He's seen Sirius twice this year, been left unsteady and sick in the aftermath of both. That night in June felt like a twisted combination of nightmare and fantasy, every confrontation he'd idly wished for in his miserable adulthood finally playing out. That Sirius was innocent after all seemed almost too good to be true, an absolution from the guilt of loving him with which Remus has flagellated himself for years. The fact that Remus' own carelessness with the potion, his haste in reaching Harry and Peter and Sirius, was the unmaking of everything, has tormented him since, new regrets superseding the old ones, the freshness of the pain stunning him after years retreading familiar ground. He'd been desperate, miserable, in the days following Sirius' escape – at one moment alive with joy at his continued existence, the next inconsolable with rekindled grief, the last thirteen years painted freshly tragic with the knowledge that, had they both trusted one another, this could all have been prevented.

 

The moment they'd embraced – when Sirius became once again a tangible thing – something inside Remus had broken, and that night he'd finally let out the scream he'd been choking on, until he was sick and panting, half terrified that now he'd started he wouldn't be able to stop, would just go the rest of his days yelling in pain and horror until finally it used him up.

 

His final meeting with Albus had been an exercise in frustration, eerily reminiscent of those first few encounters after Lily and James died - then, too, the old man had been provokingly calm, firm to the point of coldness. Then, too, Remus had been kept from Sirius – then, supposedly for his own good, now, for Sirius' sake.

 

“But Albus – surely there is a way for me to – after everything – I...”

 

“I understand how difficult this must be for you, Mr Lupin, but Sirius is – will be – indisposed for some time now. Once he has reached safety I am sure he will contact those of us with whom he needs to speak. Until then I fear we will all need to exercise patience.”

 

“Patience! I've waiting thirteen years – thirteen years, thinking...”

 

“And I'm afraid you must wait a little more, Remus,” here the ice-blue eyes grew soft with an emotion close to pity, something Remus had never been able to stand, “if you would like to help us in the meantime, seeing as you cannot be persuaded to remain at Hogwarts, something could be arranged.”

 

So he's whiled away the death of summer, the slow creep of winter, alone in his parents' deserted bungalow, attempting to help the Order in any way he can, holding in his mind the whole time a burning kernel of hatred for Peter. He feels like this is how his whole life has been spent: him and Sirius, one waiting for the other, always hovering on the precipice between love and death.

 

The second time he'd seen Sirius was in late October, a tricky time at best, and he'd wondered why things for them always snagged on certain dates – all Octobers and Decembers, the creaking hinges and joints of the year. He'd been half-asleep on the sofa, five days out from the moon and still feeling wrung-out, in the same way his hangovers had started to take a few extra days to clear lately.

 

Sitting bolt upright he'd gone to the front door, his wand arm steady but the tremor rising high in his chest, the scratching noise from the other side growing more and more insistent. Wildly he'd thought of Catherine Earnshaw, scraping her bloodied hands across the windowpanes, of all manner of terrible and exhausting phantoms, and wondered whether he had the energy left in him to really fight whatever it was.

 

When he'd thrown open the door to see the shaggy black dog he'd sighed down to his bare feet, shuffled sideways to let it pass. By the time he'd locked and bolted the door and checked his wards, Sirius had been standing behind him, a nervous look on his face. Without the mad, manic energy that had animated him back in the Shack, he'd seemed weirdly small, and very tired, although he had at least gained a little weight and acquired a tan, wherever the fuck he'd been.

 

Remus hadn't been able to think of a single thing to say to him, had pushed past him to the narrow kitchen down the hall and filled the kettle. He'd expected Sirius to follow him, as he once would have done, automatically, but by the time he'd brewed two strong, red cups of tea and brought them back to the sitting room, Sirius had still been standing in the same position, twisting his hands and looking suddenly so unfamiliar to Remus that it had taken a second for him to find his voice and ask “Well?”, gesturing with his head to the narrow two-seat sofa. Sirius had lowered himself down gingerly, seemingly aware for the first time how dirty his clothes were, how unusual it was to turn up in the middle of the night like this with no forward warning.

 

“I won't be long” he'd said finally, his voice cracking as if from misuse, “I'm travelling north.”

 

“To Hogwarts?”

 

“Nearby. I'll keep the dog on, live in a cave or the Shack, or keep moving. Harry's worried, I need – I have to be around”

 

“Does Albus....?”

 

“Yes. Vaguely. I don't imagine much of what I say to Harry gets there without him seeing it somehow, anyway”

 

“No”

 

A silence had fallen after this, in which Remus struggled to feel much more than anger – at Albus for not warning him, but mainly at Sirius himself, for being so reckless with his own safety, coming back to England when he was clearly safe overseas. Somewhat pettily he was also pissed off at Sirius for failing to owl Remus at any point since their grand reunion in June.

 

As if reading his mind, Sirius had winced, looking into his tea as he said, haltingly “I wanted to write but it never came out the way I meant it. I didn't know what to say. My head's been... I haven't been very sure of much.”

 

“You've been travelling?” Remus had asked, instead of responding directly.

 

“South America, mostly. Stayed away from cities. None of it was much fun, but what can you expect?”

 

“I don't think,” Remus had answered, in a measured sort of way “that any of us have had much fun since 1981”

 

At this Sirius had laughed, a real one, the dark sockets of his eyes temporarily illuminated by it, his youth sliding back into place like polyjuice wearing off. The noise had been jarring in the quiet cottage, used only to the low drone of Remus' records and the turning of pages, and Remus must have winced, because Sirius had shut up and tried to explain “It's only that you sounded so very much like _yourself_ , then, Moony” in a voice so heartbreakingly fond that something inside Remus' chest had twinged.

 

Sirius had showered and shaved, dressed himself in some clothes Remus found for him – the shirt had almost definitely been his to begin with, and Remus felt a pang of embarrassment about keeping it for so long. If he'd recognised it he hadn't said, and had sat afterwards with water beaded in his hair, smoking a cigarette Remus rolled for him in dead silence.

 

There had been only a couple of metres between them in the small sitting room – Remus probably could have touched Sirius without getting up – but they made no contact, barely spoke. It seemed bizarre that Sirius was so familiar and yet so much like a stranger, a man gone from his life for more years than he'd been present. Nothing seemed appropriate, and looking at that gaunt and haunted face, Remus had felt almost as if the love he felt was for a third man who was not only absent but long dead.

 

Every now and then one of them would take in a steadying breath, as if about to speak, but invariably no sound would emerge, and instead a heavy sigh would follow, loud as gunfire in the still room. Eventually Sirius had apologetically told Remus that he'd needed to get some sleep, and Remus had fetched him a heavy blanket and left him to get comfortable on the couch.

 

In the morning he'd been gone, the only evidence he'd been there at all the neatly folded blanket on the couch and the ceramic mug still sitting out, an inch of cold tea at the bottom. Remus had carried it to the kitchen in a daze, numb with the strangeness of it all. The sense of distance from Sirius had been almost worse than before: the fact that they'd been in the same place and failed to stitch themselves back together, failed to touch at all, was wounding. Remus had fitted his mouth to the ghost of Sirius' kiss on the mug rim and drank the cold last of the tea, then curled up on his couch to sleep wrapped in the scent of a someone else.

 

Months more of this, of nothing, and then the note, it's phasing so deliberate and formal that Remus can picture Sirius in the common room, his tongue poking between his lips in concentration, reverting to politeness in the face of the unknown:

 

_Moony. I have been travelling again, living as Padfoot mostly. Nothing I try will come out right, and I think I need to follow the thread of my journey north, the things I owe to Harry, before I can come back and learn how to say them. There was a wreath on the door of the house from which I took this paper, and so I believe a Happy Christmas is in order, or will be soon._

_Yours, Sirius._

 


	8. December 25th, 1995

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> December 25th, 1995
> 
> A decaying house, full of ghosts.

**December 25, 1995**

 

The world is falling apart and Remus can't believe his luck. Grimmauld Place stands as insane as a Shirley Jackson novel, its corridors heavy with darkness, its corners black with a mould almost certainly supernatural in origin. Nobody in their right mind would walk its disconcertingly thick carpets, nor its wood floors, without shoes, for fear of the splinters and leaks that always feel somehow malicious.

 

They've been trying, with little success, to tame the place themselves since late Summer, wrenched from the warm cocoon of Remus' tumbledown cottage like a caesarian birth. There, it had been all suspended animation, two whole months in which to learn English together again, to fall into the rhythm of one another's nightmares and sudden moods like dancers learning steps, anticipatory and fluid.

 

Here, Sirius is edgier, losing some of the peace they'd clawed back over dusty albums and heat-stricken vegetable patches, like a cat with its claws permanently half-out, ready to smooth or to strike depending on not very much more than which way the wind is blowing. The restlessness is part of Sirius too, though, and Remus tries to see it as another part of himself he is recovering, as valuable and human as his smile, his habit of jumping the final stair, the careless crumbs he leaves in the butter-pat.

 

He himself alternates between wild joy and despair, feeling alternately thrilled down to his roots that Sirius is here at all, and utterly resentful at how broken they are, in part and in whole, mourning the long years they could have had to learn softness together in the interwar lull. Bitterness is something he has sustained himself with over the years, allowed spite to move his limbs when nothing else was strong enough, allowed the love and the loss to crystalise the soft coal of his heart into a diamond with an edge strong enough to hurt anything that tried to touch it. Now Sirius is trying, ending up with bloody fingers about half the time, in the same way Remus sometimes feels himself breaking apart against the toast-rack hardness of Sirius' ribs like a sailboat dashed to pieces on some unseen and jagged geology. They make a fine pair. They drive one another mad.

 

Sometimes he thinks what they really need is a year or so to lock themselves away somewhere, hurl themselves at one another until the pieces fit again, a benevolent erosion chipping away at their edges and angles until they slide, smoothly, alongside each other. There's a war on, though, and they'll do the best they can: trying to heal this haunted house one room at a time, learning to celebrate small victories, loving each other through the screaming open mouths of the nights when neither can remember how to sleep soundly.

 

The first time they'd fucked again it had been agonising and tentative, so unlike Sirius that it had felt like taking a new lover entirely: flipping through old photographs, Sirius had paused mid-laugh with an expression so solemn Remus' stomach had dropped roughly to the vicinity of his scarred shins. Very carefully, as if trying not to spook something small and furry, he'd taken the album from Remus' lap, deliberately placing it on the coffee table in front of them, so slowly it hardly made a sound at all. The silence in the room had been deafening, seemed palpable and solid, plugging Remus' mouth so that he couldn't have spoken if he'd wanted to. He'd had the sense that saying anything would have broken whatever spell now held them in thrall, that the moment expanding around them was fragile and breakable, like glassblowing, could shatter with one wrong move.

 

Always before then there had been a feeling of inevitability, an unspoken knowledge in the back of Remus' mind that they would get there eventually, that after thirteen years it wasn't a thing to rush. That Sirius was pulling it from the vague realm of the _possible_ into the domain of the actual was just like him: brave and solid, and not a little stupid.

 

“Is this...” he'd half whispered, his knees touching Remus' where they sat side by side.

 

Remus'd still had hold of a photograph between finger and thumb, a daft, sepia-stained portrait of the two of them huddled cross-legged in the awning of their little tent in Haworth, muggle waterproofs pulled over jumpers and jeans. In it, Sirius' hand-rolled fag hung rakishly from his full lower lip, lit seconds before from the blue flame of their camping stove. Remus' discarded paperback was balanced on his knee, his right hand reaching to steal a drag from Sirius. The pair of them were beaming, the worst of the pissing rain kept away by magic and love love love. It had been the last time Remus could remember being properly happy for the next fifteen years.

 

Nodding, he'd allowed Sirius to take hold of the photograph, setting it reverently atop the album before turning back to Remus. The hand on his knee felt sudden and bruising, for all its gentleness, and the moment before they'd leaned towards one another had seemed agonisingly long. For a moment they'd just kissed, as if there was no expectation of any futher goal, as if kissing _was_ the culmination: Sirius' lips soft with the chapstick he made fun of Remus for using but stole anyway, nothing in the world important except the tiny area of their bodies that linked them. Eventually Sirius' hand had come up to cup Remus' jaw, his tongue parting Remus' lips, the tempo changing, everything suddenly more urgent, as if a dam had burst somewhere within both of them and now there could be no restraint.

 

Remus had felt the hot sweep of lust low in his belly, the driving and insistent need, his heart thumping _nownownow_ in his chest. He'd allowed Sirius to push him down, flat on his back on the tiny couch, his denim-clad legs spread to allow Sirius to lean on one knee between them, scrabbling at his shirt and pulling back with a look close to reverence on his face as he'd worked open the fly of Remus' jeans and helped him wiggle out of them, standing momentarily to disrobe himself.

 

Their bodies had felt strange, fit together differently, both of them thinner than they should have been, sharp angles where before they had been smooth and strong. Still he'd wanted Sirius, possibly more than he'd ever wanted anything, had gasped into his open mouth when they'd lined up, skin against skin, all the jagged lengths of them touching like continental plates. When Sirius had finally managed to recall his hands, which had been roaming all over Remus' body as if trying to memorise its contours for a relief map, and worked one between their two concave bellies, he'd taken both of them in his callused fist, a gentle but insistent motion that had sent Remus flushing from navel to nose, awash with both familiarity and surprise at the oldnew touch.

 

It, predictably, hadn't lasted long, the entire month of July feeling in retrospect like an extremely extended courtship dance, a new level of foreplay to which their younger selves could never have aspired. In the daydream aftermath, Remus had felt a previously inaccessible part of himself thaw, a great ocean of hurt coming adrift from its protective ice-cap. He'd wanted to kiss Sirius forever, for them never to stop touching, never to move back to communicating with words, which could go wrong, when touch seemed such an efficient way to convey the only things he's ever really needed Sirius to know.

 

Since then they've been teenage in their frequency, Sirius more vivid every day, and here in Grimmauld Remus is grateful they have this: something to anchor them in their bodies, pull them back down from their respective heads, where Remus knows they are both capable of getting lost.

 

He's packing now, avoiding the manic blur of Sirius at Peak Christmas. There is something both concerning and endearing about the enthusiasm with which he's throwing himself into things, something so Sirius about the need to live as hard as humanly possible, that all Remus can really do is follow along in his tinsel-bedecked wake, smiling apologetically at their assorted guests.

 

They haven't seen Harry at Christmas since he was a baby, and the best moments of the season (snake attacks notwithstanding) are the quiet seconds when Remus can watch Sirius and Harry together, dark heads bent together in laughter. He tries to quell the painful stab in his gut, the flash of grief at the thought of how many years all three of them spent apart, how many Christmases could have been like this had things been different, to focus instead on his utter amazement that they're together now at all, how his life could be so different at 34 than 32.

 

Sirius had very pointedly insisted on a joint present, a set of books for Harry to carry on teaching his friends Defence (“He's taking after you” Sirius had teased, when Harry'd written to them about the DA “Next thing, he'll be wearing cardigans and making that Cho girl soppy mixtapes like a big furry berk”). It's not that Remus wants to conceal their relationship – anyone who knew them the first time around probably has at least some idea – but, as he'd told Sirius in the summer, Harry has rather enough new information to process without a potential gay werewolf crisis on top of it all.

 

“But if he works it out on his own, I won't lie to him” Sirius had warned, a fierceness in his eyes, and Remus had conceded, his faith in the emotional perceptiveness of teenage boys fairly low. He should have known that this would lead to Sirius throwing his arm over Remus' shoulders at every opportunity and exercising even less discretion than usual with regards to sleeping arrangements, and really, he can only blame himself, after years of watching Sirius exploit conversational loopholes for his own benefit.

 

The door of their bedroom opens and Sirius strolls in, his grin still a heart-clenching surprise. “Still folding your pants for Dumbledore, eh Moony?” he asks cheerfully, although Remus knows he's anxious about Remus' departure for the Isle of Mann, both because Remus will be mixing with a particularly isolated werewolf colony at the full moon, and because he's dreading being left once more to rattle around the empty house with only Kreacher and Buckbeak for company.

 

“Indeed, although I'd rather not think about Dumbledore anywhere near my pants, ta very much”

 

“Oh I don't know, it's very Greek, isn't it? Think of all that _knowledge_ ” - he makes the word sound utterly filthy - “he could impart”

 

“Oh, Pads. That's very appealing, but you know I like my men ignorant”

 

“Oh, yes, Professor Moony, why don't you fuck some sense into me?” he plants a teasing kiss of Remus' cheek, “I might even be ready for poetry soon if you do it right”

 

“Nobody's ever ready for poetry” he says, kissing Sirius “I think that might be the point”

 

Sirius laughs and his face stills, like the moon emerging from a shroud of mist, says “I wish you weren't going away”

 

“I know. I'll be back, though. I'll always come back” he says, and means it.

 


	9. Interlude

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Here is how you come back from the dead.
> 
> (Canon divergence starts here)

Here is how you come back from the dead: first of all, don't die. Slip instead through a veil into a kind of undeath, a half-lit world of could-haves and might-have-beens, a realm entirely subjunctive in construction. Forget your name a little. Forget why you're there, at all.

 

This place is like a Pensieve – easy to turn one's head and be sucked, without warning, into a memory of yourself, transported bodily into scenes from a half-remembered life, watch decisions being made: to see them, small, and then watch them tumble forwards, growing like a snowball into avalanche.

 

Watch yourself tell the hat _Alright then, Slytherin_ , see a boy with the same face as you grinning on the bench beside you, years later. Watch the world darken slowly, yourself in the foreground. Watch a boy you never bothered to know crumble under the weight of his monthly loneliness. Watch your not-friends die one by one.

 

Watch yourself close your mouth around the phrase “I think you should use Peter”. Watch yourself never say it, see your friends live and live and live, see your lover holding you through all the strange Decembers of your life. Linger here and fight the urge to stay.

 

Further, now. See yourself in the common room, seventeen and crazy. See yourself never get the courage to kiss the boy with the sad eyes in the oldyoung face, see your lives spiral out from this point of untouching: the silences at the ends of parties, the resentment still growing, the nights unspent, never learning to take care. See yourself at forty never having known what it is to hold a life in the palm of your hand and only want to be kind to it.

 

See yourself staying at home – returning trunk in hand after yet another teenage tantrum, your name intact on the rogue's gallery of a tree. See the exact moment when this path leads you to Remus Lupin instead of James, see your lives blossom out from your midnight arrival, faltering like deer on new limbs.

 

It's his face that gets you, in the end. Him and the other, scarred boys, lost in the way you too are lost. How can you fucking stay here? You were always accused of lacking purpose but it's blinding now, the intensity white-hot, RemusandHarryRemusandHarry, pulling you through, pulling you home, the drive stronger than the will to win any war.

 

The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death.

 


	10. December 25th, 1996

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> December 25th, 1996.
> 
> An argument and a decision.

**December 25th, 1996**

 

Sirius has been back from not-dying for five months, and Remus still looks at him like he's about to shatter out of existence if he so much as coughs too loudly. It's bad enough that he's still stuck here in this dying house, this four-walled coffin that until recently apparently housed _actual chunks_ of the Dark Lord, thanks to his dear baby brother, without this suffocating distance crawling up between them.

 

A fight has been brewing for days, with Remus back in Grimmauld for a longer stretch than usual, given a brief reprieve from what Sirius mockingly refers to as his 'outreach work' – travelling ever more frequently to infiltrate werewolf colonies around Europe, try to steer them towards the Order's side of the fight against Voldemort.

 

After Sirius' unceremonious re-emergence in the Department of Mysteries, a confused and half-real blur of memory, he'd been whisked away to a closed room in St. Mungo's for all manner of tests, subjected to endless rounds of questioning from Unspeakables who couldn't conceal their excitement at having a living subject to analyse. Albus had never been far away, his expression unreadable, keeping an eye – on them, or on Sirius, he couldn't say.

 

By the time he'd been discharged, Remus had already been gone, having apparently thrown himself into the first suicide mission going, days after Sirius' disappearance. According to Harry, he'd been a wreck – he'd relayed this information in a voice so thick and wobbly that the unspoken “and so was I” had been almost audible.

 

Since then, Remus has been back in fits and starts, a few days at a time, treating Sirius with kid gloves and barely touching him. The forced neutrality is stinging, as is Remus' careful avoidance of what Sirius refuses to stop calling _their_ bedroom, preferring to stay in the small single room he'd stayed in while Sirius was gone, or to fall asleep at the kitchen table, head in a book, ineffectual cup of coffee cooling by his side.

 

Everyone's over at the Burrow for Christmas day, Sirius confined to Grimmauld as ever. He'd half-hoped for a repeat of last year, but after the year the Order's had, he can't really blame them for staying clear, wanting that wholesome golden atmosphere of family about them. Harry had been apologetic, guilty even, when he'd floo'd over this morning for a sombre cup of tea and the exchange of a few scant gifts. He's looking tired, the bags under his young eyes filling Sirius with a hopeless sort of anger, directed at the world in general and Albus Dumbledore in particular, for the weight he's bearing on those narrow shoulders.

 

“When this is all done,” he'd said, barely sounding like he believed it, “we'll have an amazing Christmas, Sirius – all three of us”. Behind him, Remus had looked pale, something in his jaw tightening, before he'd cheerily clapped Harry on the back and suggested getting him back to the Burrow before Molly had his guts for returning him too late. Remus' re-emergence from the grate some thirty minutes later had been a surprise, pulled at a foolish chord of hope somewhere in Sirius' chest, but since his return, he's done little more than retreat to the papers spread out over the kitchen table, leaving Sirius to stew in an overstuffed armchair, peering out of the rain-fogged windowpane at the inaccessible street beyond.

 

“Remus,” he asks now, stalking into the kitchen as he is periodically wont to do, daring something, _anything_ to well up from the cloying silence in the room, “Is everything alright?”

 

“Yes, well, as much as...yes. Why do you ask?” he seems startled by Sirius' voice, both them unused to conversation again.

 

“You came back”

 

Remus furrows his brow – it's not the confused furrow, but a far more familiar and complicated one, Sirius by now being intimately acquainted with reading the microexpressions of Remus Lupin, like divining tea-leaves.

 

“Well it hardly seemed fair, you know, with you here, on Christmas”

 

“Because we're having such a lovely time together otherwise?”

 

Remus puts down his pen with a heavy sigh, “Don't be like this, Sirius”

 

“Like what, exactly”

 

“You know what. Difficult. This isn't exactly a normal year, and -”

 

“And what? There's a war on Sirius, so please ignore the fact that I haven't spoken two words together to you for months? Oh, and Happy Christmas?” he can feel his temper rising, and it feels good to be finally having this out, to release the weird tension they've both been tiptoeing through since summer.

 

“If you hadn't noticed” Remus is always quiet at his angriest, his impassive expression the fastest way to drive Sirius mad “I've been a little busy trying not to get killed”

 

“Have you”

 

Remus' eyes narrow “I won't ask what you think you mean by that, Sirius. Please just – go and see Buckbeak or something, don't start an argument now, there's not - “

 

“Not what! Not time? Time's the only thing I have, you – you twat! Time waiting for you to come back, time waiting for you to speak to me, time sitting in _our_ room waiting for you to open the bloody door and stop whatever mad, self-denying shit has you sleeping with your journals and staying out all the time”

 

Sirius has hit a nerve, he can see it in Remus' face, and something nasty inside him sings with the knowledge.

 

“I hardly think -” Remus starts

 

“Hardly think what? I'd have thought you'd have learned better than this, after last time -”

 

“Because last time ended so fucking well, didn't it?!” Remus explodes, his cool finally blowing. They stare at each other over the table between them, the air thrumming with something hot despite the December chill.

 

“You always fucking do this!” Sirius shouts “You get scared and then you get cold and you lock me out, and I can't claw my way back in without hurting you! It's pathetic, man, can we just not do this, this time?”

 

“I'm sorry if you going to prison for twelve years and then sort of dying within 18 months of coming back has made me a little cautious, Sirius, Heaven forfend one of us actually think about what they're doing for more than ten minutes in advance! Do you know what would happen if you – if it happened again? Do you know what it was like for me when you were gone?”

 

“You're such a fucking coward. You always have been – you can run with the fucking wolves who'd rip you to shreds if they knew, you can duel dark magic like it's nothing, but as soon as you have to be fucking loved you're terrified”

 

“Of course I fucking love you, you selfish arsehole -”

 

“No, but _you're_ too fucking selfish to let me love you too. You think it's kind to let me live here knowing there's more of you I could have? _Should_ have? And then every time you leave on one of Dumbledore's fucking deathwish full moon missions, to sit here waiting to see if you'll come back in one piece, wondering if we've missed our last chance again?”

 

“It's always the last chance, Sirius! That's the problem! It's always life or death with us, it's – it's – _fucking exhausting_. How long do you think we'd get this time, before something happens to you, or to me, and then how could we carry on? I can't keep fucking _hoping_ and -”

 

“Oh _boo_ fucking _hoo_ Moony. You're so used to not getting what you want that it's finally happened and you can't let yourself believe it, it's so bloody – it's arrogant! Remus Lupin, uniquely unlucky, of course you're the only human being on Earth who can't have one good fucking thing, you're far too special for that, aren't you”. Sirius knows he's pushing his luck, that any minute Remus will get up from the map-scattered table, abandon his work and unfairly declare that he's _going for a walk_ , knowing full well that Sirius won't be able to follow.

 

Every time that Remus has ever bitten back his words, kept his hands to himself, hesitated on the edge of something between them, is welling up in his memory, fuelling the anger coursing through his blood like poison. In the face of Remus' white-faced silence, he turns to leave the room before he goes too far, says something he doesn't mean or can't take back.

 

“Where are you-” Remus starts, lamely, behind him

 

“Well I'm certainly not going out, am I” he spits, and storms upstairs.

 

-

 

Remus sits in silence for a few long minutes, listening to the faint bangs and crashes, presumably of Sirius kicking some antique pureblood nonesense around. It's one of his favourite stress-relief techniques, although it is admittedly riskier now that any of them could potentially house slivers of Voldemort's soul. _How did we get here_ he thinks, despairingly.

 

The problem is, nothing Sirius has said is untrue. He is a coward, and always has been – he's always clammed up when things get difficult, found letting Sirius in hard. Even when they were kids he'd felt sort of shy, small in the face of Sirius' feelings, like he needed to protect himself from their full force. The pitch-black agony of losing him – twice now – is more than he can go through again, he knows it – those days back in summer he'd felt pieces of himself falling away, his centre refusing to hold without the love that's always been there holding him together.

 

He'd hoped they could stay like this, this ill-defined stasis, on hold, until the war tips one way or the other. He could almost convince himself that it's enough to see Sirius safe, to feel the rush of warmth that always blooms in his stomach when he comes home from whatever hellhole he's been chasing rabbits in for the Order. Knowing Sirius is here is like having a beacon calling him home, a strong, steady thread connecting him back to his life no matter how far-flung the assignment, how dire the scenario he finds himself in. It seems mad and terrifying to have even one more precious thing to lose, with the stakes so high already. It's so _Sirius_ to do this, to force him from his safe middle-ground, to push and push until he has to choose one way or the other.

 

After what feels like an age, he makes his way up the staircase, his knees clicking a little, finds Sirius perched on a chaise in the first floor drawing room, moodily stitching the pages back into a book, the delicate charmwork looping in and out of the spine over and over. It's a mark of how Sirius has grown that he sometimes fixes the things he breaks, nowadays. He looks so teenage in the warm light of the panelled room, his mouth turned down in sullen displeasure, that Remus almost wants to laugh.

 

Silently he sits beside Sirius, close enough to feel the warmth from his body in a line down his side.

 

“I'm not sorry” Sirius says quietly

 

“I know. I am, though”

 

“Good.” he still hasn't looked up from the book, the silver thread of the charm hypnotic in its undulation, “you can be a real idiot, you know”

 

“I know that too”

 

“So what are we – what are you doing” he keeps his focus on the book's battered spine, but a muscle twitching under his eye gives him away a little.

 

“Well. I won't stop working for the Order – I know I'm gone a lot, but it's helping”

 

Sirius nods, and Remus continues “and I'm still bloody terrified of losin – of everything happening again”

 

“Do you think I'm not?” Sirius asks quietly, “I can't even _sleep_ when you're gone. I just think it – having something, it's worth it”

 

“None of this is how I imagined things would end up when you kissed me back at school” Remus says wistfully, and Sirius blows air through his nose in annoyance.

 

“You're always going on about the past, and what-if, and – you just can't get over this idea that it being different somehow means it's, I don't know, worse. But it isn't. I'm different, and you are – the boy who kissed you at school hadn't seen any of the things I have, but it doesn't mean I can't still love you – you're still everything, Moony. _Especially_ now.”

 

The book, healed, closes itself with a satisfied thump, lands in Sirius' lap, where he absently fiddles with the cover, continuing “Please don't fucking talk yourself out of the – the fucking promised land, or whatever. We've earned it – we've paid the fucking balance in _full_. We deserve anything we can lay our hands on after all the useless fucking pain” Sirius looks truly miserable, desperate and starving, the way he had sixteen years ago, “I'm sick with it, Moony. I'm sick for you, even after everything”.

 

The room is very quiet and Remus realises that Sirius has only trailed off because his throat is thick with tears, the frustrated kind he's seen so many times, when Sirius is about to lose an argument he feels passionately about. He's always preferred to choke than concede, to live and talk and fight and fuck until he physically can't anymore, burns out like a candle down to its core.

 

To be worth that amount of effort, Remus thinks. To _let_ myself be. After all this time.

 

Remus lays one hand on Sirius' knee, remembering the two boys in the common room, the two men in his parents' house, an echo of an echo of an echo, love bouncing down through all the years they've know one another, amplifying like a song in a speaker, finding its perfect pitch.

 

Sirius' long fingers find his own, fit together the way they always have, like the jagged teeth of a key meeting their corresponding absences within a lock. His own voice shaking, Remus asks, looking down at the perfect collision of their two hands, a poem he's always known but never properly understood, “So, what would you like to happen now?”.

 

“Well,” Sirius says, his eyes as bright and brimming as any killing fucking moon, alive with hope and fear and terrifying, furious certainty, “I was rather hoping for a happy ending”.

 


End file.
